The novel is a surreal sexual fantasia, set in a theme park called the House of Holes, and brimming with men and women eager to have sex in a startling variety of manners. It’s the Garden of Earthly Delights as redesigned by Kafka. Or perhaps an adolescent Kafka.

Eric Hilton and Rob Garza started Thievery Corporation at a Washington, D.C. nightclub in the mid-1990s, and the two producers are still experimenting. This summer, they released their sixth album, Culture of Fear. It features collaborations with six artists from a range of genres, multilingual (and sometimes politically charged) lyrics, and, underneath it all, the intoxicating beat-making on which the duo made its name.

At the Daily Beast, Evan Hughes, author of Literary Brooklyn, makes the case for the borough's Columbia Heights as America's most literary street.